AMD's Richland vs. Intel's Haswell GPU on the Desktop: Radeon HD 8670D vs. Intel HD 4600
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 6, 2013 12:00 PM ESTFinal Words
Despite Haswell's arrival on the desktop, AMD is in no trouble at all from a graphics perspective. At the high end, Richland maintains a 17 - 50% GPU performance advantage (~30% on average) over Intel's HD 4600 (Haswell GT2). All things equal, even Trinity is good enough to maintain this performance advantage - a clear downside of Intel not bringing its Iris or Iris Pro graphics to any socketed desktop parts.
While there isn't a substantial increase in GPU performance between Richland and Trinity, AMD's GPU performance lead over Ivy Bridge was big enough to withstand Haswell's arrival. Note that although we're comparing performance to Haswell here, Richland exists in a lower price bracket. If you want the best desktop solution with processor graphics, AMD remains your best bet.
Later this year we'll see the arrival of Kaveri, which will be AMD's true response to Iris as well as its first HSA enabled APU. For as long as I can remember, integrated graphics was one of the most frustrating aspects of PC hardware to test. It looks like that's finally about to change.
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jrs77 - Thursday, June 6, 2013 - link
Sorry to say, but if you wanna play games, then grab a dedicated GPU. Noone plays modern games with integrated GPUs. iGPUs are only good for some casual gaming that don't demand any powerful GPU.The only thing I'm interested in is the CPU-part and intel wins this comparison by a mile. AMD needs better CPU-performance or they'll never win me back as a customer for desktop-parts.
Voldenuit - Thursday, June 6, 2013 - link
Exactly. I'm mystified by Richland's existence. Exactly where does it make sense for desktop users?If you're gaming on a desktop and you're on a budget, it's more expensive than the outgoing A10 5800K and not much faster. Nor does it make any games playable that were unplayable before on the older APU.
If you're gaming on the desktop and budget is not the biggest factor, why even bother looking at AMD parts right now?
If you're planning on a HTPC build the 100W TDP is too high. Get a Haswell or an older (and lesser model number) Trinity APU.
If you plan to build your own all-in-one, again the TDP is too high.
So why would anyone buy Richland on the desktop? It's $20 (15%) more expensive than the A10 5800K but only ~5% faster. Is there +1000 model number simply there to justify the price hike?
silverblue - Friday, June 7, 2013 - link
It's slightly better silicon released to make AMD look a little better. There's also the much touted software bundle they've been mentioning - AMD seems to be more about the "experience" nowadays.As an upgrade to my old PII X3 710, it'd be significant... but the GPU wouldn't be better than my 4830. Kaveri, on the other hand, would likely improve on the latter as well as providing more than double my current CPU speed. In 2009, the CPU and GPU cost me approx. £180 (about $250?), but in 2013, I'd be surprised if I had to pay more than two thirds of that for something much better. :)
Calinou__ - Friday, June 7, 2013 - link
There are games that don't require a powerful GPU and are hard to play.kgh00007 - Thursday, June 6, 2013 - link
For **** sake please increase the size of the text on your site, it's too small and I'm getting eye strain reading all the articles on Computex, do you not listen to your readers, the text is too small!!!Sent from my nexus 7 with eye strain!
Gigaplex - Thursday, June 6, 2013 - link
It's too big for me, so I just use the zoom setting on my browser. I suggest you try the same, or stop using a 7" tablet.kgh00007 - Friday, June 7, 2013 - link
I suggest you stop giving useless advice, I'm not going to stop using my tablet. Even with text at 120% the text is too small and the text on other websites is huge @ 120%.The text on every other website I have ever visited on my nexus 7 is fine, so why can't anandtech be the same? There is an issue here that needs to be resolved.
bji - Friday, June 7, 2013 - link
Regardless of your feelings, posting about your issue in this discussion is off topic and pointless as Anand is not going to read and act on your post.I'd say to write to Anand directly but I've tried that and it seems the emails go ignored anyway. I think you either just have to live with the site as it is or stop visiting the site. But whatever you do, don't introduce more off topic posts please.
duploxxx - Friday, June 7, 2013 - link
by not running the trinity on supported max mem you effected the whole review, Richland ends up in that case being a very minor update....On top of that not a single word on the improved power.
But then again as you mention with all the things around with Intel and all the nice motherboards linup for hasswell etc why even bother its just AMD. pls continue the efforts like this, a few years from know you regret that you will need to pay double for the same cpu, dominiated predefined designs by marketing geeks etc... way to go
DeviousOrange - Friday, June 7, 2013 - link
Its pointless doing a iGPU review if you don't have frame metering factored in. Tomshardware, Techreport, PCPer all did frame transition ratings and this is where HD4600 took a massive beating, in most titles showed up Intel's iGPU to hit 60+ms frame lags while the APU is very low latencies for many titles at lower resolutions (sub HD) is under 1ms where Intel spikes will result in noticeable lags and stutters despite looking close on FPS which are basically not worth what they were.BF3 @ 1080 on low settings with DDR3 2400 on my 5800K manages about 30FPS but its almost lag free, tested on HD4000 was completely undesireable to even persist, basically playing a slideshow, since HD4600 doesn't fix this much it still puts AMD top in the iGPU stakes by a healthy margin irrespective of frames per second. Since we are comparing top vs top there is no ambiguity. THG showdown between a i3 and 6800K was interesting, a 6800K can beat a i3 + 6670 in a few titles so that is another testiment to the improvement of APU technology.